


be not too rough with me

by thekissofbees



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: F/F, F/M, Female Jamie Benn, Female Sidney Crosby, Femslash, Femslash February
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 18:39:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6090367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekissofbees/pseuds/thekissofbees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She sees a glint as the beltway overpasses the water in a tangle of intersecting highways and main city arteries. It’s always a nightmare, getting into the city and trying to find the correct exits and lanes. The sun is sinking away into the murky water, and the city looks low and depressed. For a moment, Jamie wonders what she was thinking, coming back. There’s nothing left here in this damn city, not for her at least. Maybe nothing left here for anybody. </p>
<p>Sometimes Jamie feels like she just goes to the same places over and over again. Sees the same people, has the same conversations, maybe even has the same thoughts. There has to be more out there, she’s sure of it. Surely not everyone lives this way. She’ll admit, however, that if she is fated to always repeat the same scenes over and over again, she could have chosen a lot worse than this beach with Sidney.</p>
            </blockquote>





	be not too rough with me

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a story about Jamie and Tyler. It is, strangely enough, a story about Jamie Benn and Sidney Crosby. I am as surprised as you are. It starts out with a little bit of F/M, but the true heart of the story is F/F. Furthermore, I’ve changed up the races and genders and backgrounds of most of the characters—I’m not sure at what point a story stops being RPF, but this one is probably treading the line. 
> 
> [tw: breakups, homophobia, mental illness, a little bit of suicidal ideation, speech problems, near drowning. See endnotes for more thorough trigger warning with spoilers.]

The first time Jamie meets Tyler, they’re at an awkward as shit event for her work. Her coworkers had guilted her into going, saying that someone had to represent their division and it might as well be her. She’s wearing pink heels that she can’t walk in and a red dress with a neckline that she has to keep yanking up. She’s not sure if the pink and the red match, but she doesn’t own any other nice shoes so she decides they’ll have to do. 

It’s a fancy affair, men and women in uniform and a few beautiful blondes with those long curving swan necks and a jazz band somewhere in a corner, plonking away. There are a couple of speeches, mostly some balding guys praising each other. Jamie sees a few celebrities scattered here and there, glitzing about to show their “support.”

There’s no real dinner, just a collection of too small desserts. She clutches a fragile champagne flute like a weapon, takes a big drink of it whenever it appears that someone may be approaching her for conversation. 

She talks about her job with a few of the wives—she’s not very good with people, but she at least knows that when their eyes start glazing over it’s probably time to stop trying to explain what an ELISA is and instead excuse herself to stuff more mini cheesecakes in her mouth. She feels too big around these women, lumbering around like some dumb animal that someone decided to dress up.

She meets Tyler while moodily waiting to get another cup of ice cream. Or sorbet, what the fuck ever. 

He leans in, touches her waist lightly, like something out of an old movie. “Hey good-looking,” he says, grinning. He steers her towards a chair, and she follows his lead. It’s impossible not to, with all that attention beamed on you at once. “Take a load off those pretty feet, baby doll,” he says. “I’ll get you some ice cream.” She nods, smiles helplessly. 

He comes back to the table, carefully balancing a few bowls of ice cream and pieces of cake. “Hello sweet,” he says, hugging her as he places them down on a little table. “Has anyone ever told you that you have beautiful shoulders?” 

He leans so naturally into the spaces that she normally hides in. He listens patiently as she gets tongue-tied, doesn’t try to help her along or guess what she’s trying to say, just waits for her to figure it out. 

She describes the signaling proteins she’s studying: why they matter, where they’re found, how she measures them, and he listens studiously, brow furrowed. Asks questions in all the right places, like he cares, like he wants to understand. He tells her plays professional hockey in Dallas, “because I’m a fucking idiot,” and talks about winters in Ontario, about always being the only Latino kid on his teams. He gives away so much so fast, it’s like he’s never heard of having a secret. 

They sneak away to a terrace above the ballroom, and mercilessly make up backstories for all the stern-faced officers below them. 

“That one has a secret lover in Paris,” whispers Tyler, covertly pointing at a middle-aged brunette with her hair tightly pulled back in a bun. “One time, he ate her out in the bathroom of the Louvre, and then they held hands and looked at the Mona Lisa.” 

“Jean-Paul, mon amour!” Jamie says, giggling. 

By the end of the night, he has her number and she has his promises to call, to take her out somewhere with more food and less military brass. She doesn’t believe him, thinks he could have any girl in the world, certainly someone better than her. Someone who doesn’t flush splotchily when he flirts, someone who can flirt back without getting slow and dumb and embarrassed. 

In the taxi ride back home, however, he texts her.

_do u kno how 2 salsa ?? ___

_this is ty btw ___

_tyler the hockey player ___

Jamie stares at the texts for a moment. She’s amused despite herself.

_I can’t dance. ___

_do u wnt to learn ___

_I won’t be good at it. ___

_im a fuckin great teacher u will learn frm the best ___

She shakes her head at the phone. _I really can’t dance. ___

_do u wnt to learn tho cuz u hve the body for it ___

_my apartmnt ths Fri? 7. u will b great i promise babe. ___

_Okay. ___

He sends her a fist bump emoji and his address. 

***  
They’re in his living room and he’s trying to teach her to bachata. There’s too much furniture that she keeps bumping into and he’s singing along to some song that he’s playing over his ridiculous sound system and he’s somehow still managing to count to four over and over again. She’s overwhelmed, he’s too graceful and smooth and his hips are doing this thing. 

“ _Y bailo mi bachata… con mi muchachita linda _…there you go, baby, just like that.” He gives her this breathtaking smile, like she’s everything good he’s ever seen, like she’s perfect. She can’t do anything but smile back, look down at her hands held loosely in his and focus on making her hips move.__

He cooks dinner, dancing her around the kitchen, leading her with the faintest pressure on her back. He spins her, too fast, and she can’t help but laugh, a bright clear sound. “You’re so good, cielita,” he says, pressing a kiss to her cheek. 

She doesn’t know what to say, can’t get the words out to tell him how happy she is, here in this shining kitchen with the rice cooking on the stove and the fish baking in the oven. Instead she just blinks shyly at him, lets him serve her too much food and grins at his grumbled complaints that she needs to eat more. 

He treats her so carefully, with such gentleness. Underneath all that bluster, the bravado, there’s nothing reckless or thoughtless about Tyler. She’s not used to being treated with such care, not used to someone worrying about her like this. She’s lived alone for a long time. He notices her shivering, and immediately he’s draping her with a sweatshirt, adjusting the thermostat. She rubs her shoulder and he’s there, massaging out the knot. 

***  
For the next few months they end up getting together once or twice a week, depending on Tyler’s travel schedule. He makes her dance every time, and she’s surprised to find that she’s becoming good at it. She no longer has to think about moving her body in the right way, and she follows his lead like he’s an extension of herself. 

One day, she takes him out hiking at the Cedar Ridge Preserve. It’s the closest she ever feels to being back home, out in the woods of the Hill Country with the creeks running every which way. She loves Texas, but there are still times when she wonders what she was thinking, moving this far away from the ocean and woods of home. She tries to explain her home to him, in her own stilted way, tells him that she’s never taken anyone out here before. 

***  
He takes her out to a movie, a Monday night when there’s no one at the theater. Dallas doesn’t give a shit about hockey, but Tyler’s charismatic enough that he still sometimes gets fans asking for his signature. He says he doesn’t feel well while they’re sitting in the theater, watching the previews. Privately, she suspects that he’s hung over, but she goes to the lobby and buys him a ginger ale and doesn’t say anything about it, just fidgets. He can normally guess what she’s thinking anyway. 

The movie is really fucking good, makes her cry because she’s never been able to help that. Ty doesn’t touch her, which is weird for him because normally he touches her like he’s starving to death. She thinks that he’s probably keeping to himself tonight because he still doesn’t feel well even after the soda, and is overcome by fondness for him at the thought. 

He holds her hand anyway, going out of the theater into the night, and for a second Jamie is struck by how extraordinarily happy she is. The sky is curled around her, a grey blanket speckled with stars, and the city spills out before her, burning with life. And by her side: Tyler. It stings, the pure emotion vibrating down her spine. She wants to grab her hair with both hands and pull, wants to scream out noiselessly that this feeling is too much, that she is too full. That she wants more. 

He smiles wryly down at her. “You hungry?”

She notes the absence of a pet name distractedly, still too overwhelmed to dissect what that means. “Yeah.”

They walk to a dive bar of a Chinese restaurant, and Jamie leans her head against the back of the booth, watching Ty order. Shrimp fried rice, chow mein, sweet and sour pork, dumplings. It’s all the complete opposite of Tyler’s diet, and she wonders what the occasion is to justify such an extreme cheat day. Tyler gulps down a beer; too fast. But then the food is arriving: little take-out cartons and two styrofoam plates with chopsticks. They’re dividing the food, eating off each other’s plates and from the cartons and getting all up in each other’s space. Ty is intent on making her laugh, asking stupid questions about her current experiment and grinning crookedly when she hits him with her chopsticks. It’s all so normal. 

They take an Uber back to her apartment, and the car ride back is strange, quiet and too still, like Tyler is trying to stay in control. When they get out of the car, she sees that his hands are shaking, before he tucks them away into his pockets. They walk down the street, until suddenly he stops.

“Jamie,” he says. “Jamie.” She loves the way he says her name. “I have to tell you something.”

She grins at him, wide and open. “Good something or bad something?” she asks. 

“Bad something.” He won’t look at her. 

She swallows, heart suddenly in her throat. “Oh,” she whispers. “Okay. We’re going to do this here?” He wouldn’t break up with her, not here. Not on the sidewalk outside her apartment building. 

He runs his hand through his hair, sighs. She loves those hands. She loves those arms, has traced the ink with her lips more times than she can count. “I don’t want you to…I don’t want to come in and then cause you to have bad memories of your apartment or something,” he says quietly. This is bad. This is really really bad. He has planned this out. 

“Okay,” she repeats. 

“Jamie,” he says, too fast. “Idon’tlikeyou.”

She heard that wrong. She must have. “What?” she asks, her voice wavering a little bit.

He is still avoiding her eyes. “I don’t like you. Not like that. I thought that maybe I did, but I don’t.”

“Oh.”

He’s babbling now. “You’re so beautiful and smart and good and god, Jamie, I really did think I liked you. But I don’t. I just don’t. And you deserve someone better, someone who likes you and treats you right. Jamie, listen to me, please listen to me, you can never let someone treat you as badly as I’ve treated you, okay? You deserve so much better. You can’t let them do that to you.” She wants to protest. Wants to tell him that he’s always treated her right. But her heart is beating too fast and she can’t breathe, she can’t get the words out. Because he doesn’t even like her. 

“Oh,” she says again, dully. 

They both stare at the ground for a moment. “Is…is there someone else?” she asks, her voice tired. She doesn’t know what would be worse, if there was or if there wasn’t. To think of Tyler fucking some other girl. More than that. Falling in love with some other girl. Having to plan out a way to let poor pathetic Jamie down easy, let her know that he’s never liked her, that he’s in love with some other girl. But worse, maybe, if there wasn’t someone else. If Tyler had just one day realized that Jamie was nothing, that he was wasting his time. Tyler, who is always so desperate for touch, realizing that he’d prefer to be alone rather than have to touch someone like Jamie. 

“Yes,” says Tyler. Jamie nods. She doesn’t know what to say. “Do…do you want to know who?” Tyler asks. Jamie doesn’t. Jamie really doesn’t. 

“Yeah,” she says. “If you don’t mind.” 

Tyler is staring somewhere over her shoulder now. “I thought I liked girls, I really did,” he says. “Or at least that I liked you.” Which. What. “But…” And now he’s crying, big broken sobs that seem to shake through his whole body. He seems so small, suddenly. “Can…can I have a hug?” he asks, his arms already outstretched. 

“Yeah,” she breathes, wrapping her arms around him. She never wants him to be sad. Tyler should always be smiling, should always be on the edge of laughing, should always have whatever he wants. 

“I…I can’t…I can’t…” Jamie has never seen Tyler this cracked open. He’s gasping out words: hockey, something about his father and going to hell and then, his voice fading away, how Brownie has never loved him like that, never will. “Because it’s not right, the way I love him,” he says, his laugh an angry, brittle thing. And then: “Please don’t be angry, Jamie,” he begs. He bites his lip, tightens the hand that is all balled up in her shirt, pulls her closer to him. “You should be angry. You should be so angry. I am so awful.” Jamie says nothing, just lets Tyler cry himself out against her chest. 

“We can still be friends,” says Tyler, pulling away. “I need you, Jamie. I need you to still be my friend.” He is too pale, shaking all over. She thinks, distantly, that this kind of behavior isn’t good, that he’ll make himself sick with the stress. 

“Yeah,” she says. He lets out an audible breath of relief. “But…you’ve got to give me some space first, okay? I need some time.” 

He nods, overeager, tears still streaking down his cheeks. “Of course, Jamie. All the time you need.” 

He asks if she wants him to walk her in, and she shakes her head, stumbles away. She walks as though in a dream into the lobby, and stands there, staring at the cracks in the ceiling, at the mold creeping up one of the walls, until someone asks if she’s okay. She smiles at them automatically, assures them that she’s fine, and then walks back out into the night.

She thought she was doing so much better. She thought that she was doing what she was supposed to do, with Tyler. Sometimes, when she was with Tyler, she didn’t even think about her, for a few hours at least. 

She goes to the corner store a few blocks away, buys a few bars of chocolate and some freezer-burned ice cream. That’s what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it? 

Walking back to her building, she sees a broken bottle lying in a puddle. She does a double take, and then shakes her head at herself. Broken bottles aren’t sea glass. It takes decades for the edges to be worn away and the shards to become frosted over. 

It’s time to go home, she thinks.

***  
The elevator is broken so she walks the five flights of stairs up to her apartment and then unlocks the door, slowly. She puts the ice cream away in the freezer and stares out at her rooms. A narrow hallway with a kitchenette, a small bedroom with a twin bed, and a bathroom with a cracked mirror. 

For a moment, she wants to get drunk, wants to scream, wants to throw something out the window. Instead, she walks to the sink and dutifully scrubs the pan she had left to soak before going out. 

She finds that she’s not that angry with Tyler. She doesn’t want to key his car or whatever it is that people do in country songs. She dries her hands on a towel and leans against the wall opposite the sink.

Mostly she’s angry with this Brownie kid. Who does he think he is, not loving Tyler back? Doesn’t he see how well Tyler could love him, if he let him? 

She slides down the wall, sits on the floor and wraps her hands around her knees. She stares at the scratches on the cabinet for a moment and then calls Jordie.

“I think I’m coming home for Christmas this year,” she says, her words coming out slurred together.

“Jamie?”

“’S me.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” she says immediately. And then hiccups, lets out a little laugh. “No. Not really, actually.”

“What’s wrong?” She can hear the concern in Jordie’s voice. She’s forgotten what it was like, having a sister. Jamie can feel Jordie’s face in her hands, can read every tremor in Jordie’s voice, even all these miles apart. 

She is struck by a sudden sense memory of being a child, turning over the dirt in the vegetable garden in the early spring and spreading a layer of compost across the frosty ground. 

This was back when they still lived on the Eastern Shore, before they moved into the city to try to get Jamie more socialization. Jamie was at the height of her inability to talk, the worst days when her mother had dragged her from doctor to doctor, franticly trying to force her to communicate through a combination of candy and begging. Jamie tried her best to speak, desperately attempted to choke the words out, but it was as if the harder she worked, the more unable to talk she became. 

At first, Jamie had only gotten worse after they moved into the city, when she had stopped being able to see the marshes and water every morning. But eventually, the rhythms of Baltimore had settled into her skin, and she and Jordie had escaped out into the woods whenever the city became too overwhelming. 

They were talking about her in the garden that day, she remembers. And she remembers seeing Jordie’s cool shake of her head, her careless statement that she never had any trouble understanding Jamie. 

It was the true, was the thing. Jamie had held a handful of soil in her hand, and let it run out between her fingers. 

“Tyler broke up with me,” she says, tears starting to flow. She coughs to cover up the sound of her ragged breathing, although she knows she can’t fool Jordie.

“That bastard.”

Jamie laughs, a little hysterically. “He’s gay.”

“Damn.” Jordie sighs. “I’m sorry, hon.”

Jamie chokes out another breath. “It was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen, Jordie. Him telling me. I can’t hate him because he hates himself enough for the both of us, I think.” 

Jordie hums. “I wish he hadn’t hurt you, though. Hadn’t lied to you. Although I guess he was lying to himself more.”

“Yeah.” They listen to each other breathe for a long moment. “We’re going to be friends, I think,” Jamie says lightly.

“You gonna help him embrace his identity and all?”

“Yeah. We’ll go to gay bars and shit. Find him a nice boy.” Jamie can feel Jordie’s smile over the phone. 

“You’re always such a goddamn optimist.”

“Sure am.” Jamie rolls her eyes, even though she knows that Jordie can’t see.

“You’ll be cracking jokes even as the sun burns out, won’t you? I can just see you, staring down the end of the world with those big unimpressed cow eyes…”

“I don’t have cow eyes!”

“…saying something snide about making the best of it…”

“You’re so mean.” 

“Big sister, at your service.” 

Jamie laughs but somehow at the end it converts to a sob. “I miss the ocean.”

“And here I was, thinking you missed me.” 

“Shut up. And trees. I miss our trees.”

“That big ol’ Texas sky not doing it for you?”

“Not all of Texas is a desert, you know.” 

“Sure. You live in a prairie or something, don’t you?” 

“I live in Dallas, dipshit.” 

“Mhmm. So you’re coming home?” 

“Just for Christmas.”

“You told Mom? And Sid?”

“No. You can tell them, can’t you?” 

“Hon.”

“Okay, okay.” 

“That’s my girl. Take care, okay?”

“You too.”

Jamie hangs up, and takes another moment to stare at her cabinets. Tears are still rolling softly down her cheeks, but they feel cleansing now. She always feels renewed after talking to Jordie, feels as though she has been gently fastened back down to the earth and prevented from floating away. 

She texts her mom: _Coming home for Christmas, broke up with Tyler, love you. _That covers the basics.__

_:( sorry honey. but glad you’re coming home :) <3 <3 <3 ___

_I will make all of your favorite foods once you get here <3 <3 <3 ___

She can’t help but smile. When she was a child, her mom always acted as though food and hugs could solve everything. A lot of the time it was true. 

She thinks about texting Sidney, but finds herself unable to do so. What could she even say? 

***  
Jordie picks her up at BWI airport, a week later. “Mom is losing her shit,” Jordie says, roughly pounding her on the back while attempting to pull Jamie’s suitcase out of her arms. “Is this your only bag?”

Jamie puts this information through her Jordie-translator, and reflects that Jordie must have been missing her more than she had let on. 

“Seriously, she’s been making crab cakes and okra. And she’s been threatening to make one of those Smith Island cakes.”

Jamie gives a fake gasp. “Crabs and a cake? You have got to be kidding me.”

“I’m not. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make a cake with that many layers? And I hope you’re in the mood for seeing everyone, because I’m pretty sure she’s invited all of the family over for dinner tonight.” 

“Just family?”

“Well, family and near-equivalents, you know how it is.”

“So, like, who then?” Route 295, is per usual, a complete and utter fucking disaster. 

“Jamie.” Jamie squirms in her seat. On the opposite side of the highway, going South, there’s a pickup truck filled with tiny fish, ostensibly held down by a netted sheet. In actuality, however, the fish are flying out between the holes in the netting, and flapping onto the windshields of the cars behind the truck. “Jamie.” Jamie wonders what kind of fish they are. “Are you even listening to me?” The truck is probably coming from the Bay. Jordie sighs. “Have you not talked to Sid, or something?” Anchovies, maybe? They look to be about the right size for anchovies. “Jamie. I thought you weren’t going to do this anymore.” Jordie sounds like she’s in pain. 

Jamie snaps back. “Do what?”

Jordie takes one of her hands off the wheel, and waves it around a bit. “You know. That thing you do. With the not-talking and everything.” Her face is all squished up, and there are new lines running between her eyes that Jamie doesn’t recognize. It’s been four years, she realizes. Four years since she’s been home. Of course Jordie’s face has new lines. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. 

“What do you even think you’re apologizing for?” Jordie asks, staring stonily ahead. 

“Just, for everything. Not telling Sid and not coming home and not talking and all the rest of it.” Jamie wants to cry. 

The traffic has slowed to a crawl around them. Jordie rubs Jamie’s cheekbone with the pads of her fingertips, an old gesture from their childhood that makes Jamie smile. “You’re fine, hon. You know I just want you to be okay, right?”

“I know,” Jamie mumbles. 

“Tell me you’re okay?”

“I’m okay.” 

“Roll down the windows, roll down the windows!” Jordie says suddenly.

“Why? You fucking live here, idiot.”

“Oh, hush.”

“Do you do this every day?” 

“Only when you’re here, hon.” Jamie sticks out her tongue, but rolls open the window anyway. She tries to subtly crane her neck, looking out for that first glance of the water. 

Jordie laughs. “Can you smell the Bay?”

“Rotting crabs and motor oil, yep.” 

“Shut up, Texas girl.” 

She sees a glint as the beltway overpasses the water in a tangle of intersecting highways and main city arteries. It’s always a nightmare, getting into the city and trying to find the correct exits and lanes. The sun is sinking away into the murky water, and the city looks low and depressed. For a moment, Jamie wonders what she was thinking, coming back. There’s nothing left here in this damn city, not for her at least. Maybe nothing left here for anybody. 

Suddenly, the scent of the water hits her nose. As she told Jordie, it does smell a bit like trash and rotting fish. There’s also the smell of someone burning rubber on the highway. But over all of that, it smells like home. Brackish water moves through the lungs differently, and the wintry air fills up the car with memories of blue herons and early mornings in an old dinghy. 

She rolls the windows back up again, silently. They drive through the city. It seems like there are even more broken and abandoned buildings than she remembered there being when she had left, during the height of the recession. Her eyes adjust, and she sees there are people lying in dark corners along the streets, bundled up in big coats and plastic bags. “It’s been rough here, hasn’t it?” She regrets the question as soon as it leaves her mouth. That’s not the kind of thing they talk about. 

Jordie nods, mouth set in a straight line. 

They arrive home. The townhouse looks shabbier than Jamie remembers, paint peeling off the front in strips. In the window, her mom’s herb garden peeps down at them. Little curls of cilantro and parsley, the proud unbowed heads of basil. The whole house is lit up from inside, streaming brilliantly out onto the tree-lined street. 

The first face Jamie sees as her mother opens the door is Sid’s, and then she is engulfed in a wave of her mom and aunts’ embraces. Everyone is talking all at once, a fluid stream of warm words and happy exclamations. 

She’s tugged inside, and arms are pulling off her coat and mittens and clucking over how she needs to eat more. Jamie feels Sid gently pat her side and coolly state that she’s glad Jamie has finally managed to come home. 

Jamie is pushed down into a seat at the table, and before she knows it, her mom is pushing a full plate in front of her. The table is made for only four seats, but there is family sitting everywhere: cousins perched on the arms of the couch and the floor, aunts clustered on folding chairs and squashed together on the couch, her grandmother holding court in the rocking chair, and her mom’s best friend singing in the kitchen. There’s a pile of dogs lying under the table, panting eagerly. And Sid, of course, on the opposite side of the room, feeding Aunt Ellie’s baby. Jordie raises her eyebrows at Jamie, as if to say, “you see what I mean?” 

Jamie eats the crab cakes and the okra and the mashed potatoes and the grits and the cowpeas and the creamed collards. She puts Old Bay on everything, to the widespread delight of her watching family. She has seconds. Her mom still acts like she’s five minutes away from dying from starvation. 

“What is Texas like?”

“Is everyone obsessed with football?”

“Oh my God, the fucking Ravens this year… You don’t even know, Jamie, you don’t even know.”

“Do they all have accents?”

“Do you live in the desert?”

A round-eyed little boy—who Jamie imagines must be her cousin Ray, all grown up now—removes his thumb from his mouth and asks if there are tumbleweeds, like in the comics. 

“Are you building a bomb for the army?” 

Jamie is a little bit horrified by this last question. “I’m a biologist!”

Her aunt shakes her head gravely. “You never do know, with the military.” 

Her mom’s cake is, as promised, a beautiful monstrosity. Jamie counts six layers, and is uncertain how she’s going to fit a slice into her mouth. Her mother’s face is overflowing with pride and ebullience. She keeps touching Jamie gently, as if she’s trying to reassure herself that it’s true, Jamie really is home. 

Finally, they’re leaving. Big clumps of family totter outside, clutching leftovers and pressing teary kisses to Jamie’s cheeks, hair, hands. Sid leaves somewhere in the middle of the crowd, dutifully taking home several plates of food. She nods at Jamie. “I’ll see you around.” Jamie’s mom scoops Sidney up in a big hug, and kisses all over her face until Sidney is left blushing and laughing. Jamie stands by, hands in her pockets, and watches until an aunt comes by and demands her attention. 

***  
“Wake up,” Jordie says, looming over Jamie’s bed and poking her in the head with an index finger.

“’m on vacation.”

“No, you’re moping.”

“’m not.” 

“You’re making mom sad.”

Jamie opens her eyes and stares reproachfully out at her sister. “Time ‘s it?”

“Twelve. Look hon, this was fine the first few days you were here, but it’s getting a little old now.” 

Jamie drags herself up to a seated position, and wraps the blanket around herself like a cape. “Am not moping.” 

“Get dressed.” Jamie picks a pair of sweatpants up off the floor. “You wore those yesterday.” Jamie wriggles out of her pajamas and puts on the pants anyway. “Bitch, I don’t need to see your naked ass.” 

“No one’s asking you to be here.” 

Jordie throws up her hands. “Fine. Just lay in bed all day, what do I care.” She stalks out of the room. Jamie lets her head hang between her knees. Just for a minute, she thinks. She just feels a little bit dizzy. “And another thing—“ Jordie says, striding back in. “Wait, what are you doing?” 

Jamie jerks up. “Nothing. Changing. Looking for socks. On the floor. Floor socks.”

“Floor socks.” 

“Yes.” She tries to look innocent. 

“That’s it, I’m calling Sidney.”

Jamie catches her wrist. “No. Please. Just…Jordie, please don’t do that.” 

Jordie looks slightly more sympathetic. “You could just…Hon, you could just ask her if she wanted to hang out, you know? It doesn’t have to be that hard, okay? You’re both adults.”

“How? I mean, like, what do I say?” She puts on a mocking, high-pitched voice. “ _Oh, Sid-ney, you’re my on-ly friend and I am so very lone-ly. My boyfriend is gay and now I am forever alone, want to go see a movie with me? That way we don’t have to look at each other or discuss what happened four years ago, and can instead watch things blow up on a screen. _”__

The lines between Jordie’s eyes are back. “Yeah, okay, no. Give me your phone.” 

“What? No!” She’s too late. Jordie darts forward and grabs her phone. Jamie tries to tackle her, and they both fall onto the floor. Jordie is brutally tickling her stomach, and through her angry laughter Jamie hears the sound of a message being sent. 

_Sid ocean???? tmrw. sorry ___

_Is this Jordie? ___

Jamie looks at the screen in horror. “Oh God. Oh no.” She shoves the phone back at Jordie. “I can’t deal with this. Fix this. Fix it. Please. Oh God.” 

Jordie waves a hand at her dismissively. “Calm down, hon. I am the master of this kind of thing.” 

_Nope this is Jamie. ___

Jamie puts her face in her hands. “You are a monster.” 

_Okay, I can do tomorrow. You want to drive? ___

_Sure. See you then :) ___

Jordie beams and shoves Jamie. “See! I’m the best big sister. Say it.”

“I hate you. I am going to have a heart attack from the stress.” Jordie puts her in a headlock. “You are the literal worst.” She gives Jamie a noogie. “I am going back to bed now.” She gives Jamie a wet, smacking kiss on the ear. “Gross! Fine, whatever, you’re the best, leave me alone.” Jordie releases Jamie, smiling triumphantly.

Jordie pulls Jamie up to standing. “Mom is making cookies!” She drags Jamie downstairs, refusing to let go of her hand until she is firmly deposited in the kitchen.

***  
Jamie borrows her mother’s car for the trip. Her mother lectures her about checking the tire pressure before she leaves. It all feels a little bit too much like high school. 

Growing up, the kids in school had given Sid shit because her parents didn’t speak English and packed her strange-smelling lunches instead of sandwiches. They gave Jamie shit too, for talking funny and being at once too dumb and too nerdy. By the time high school had rolled around, Sidney and Jamie had both been firmly placed in the “loser” category.

Jamie doesn’t wish being a kid on anyone. From what she’s seen, it’s almost universally a traumatizing experience. 

Jamie puts the address of Sidney’s new apartment building into her GPS, and pulls up in front of the entrance, hazard lights on and a whole line of cars honking behind her. Sidney is, per usual, several minutes late, so when she gets into the car Jamie is already a sweaty mess from disappointing the expectations of strangers. Jamie feels like she should have a bumper sticker that says: _I am sorry about everything. ___

“You remember how to get there?” Sidney asks, brusquely.

“Umm,” Jamie says, intelligently. She signals, trying to change lanes, to the anger and dissatisfaction of every other car on the road. 

“Fine. I’ll just put it in the map thing.” Jamie nods, tries to smile. A man gives her the finger. 

Sidney flips on the radio, and they listen in silence for miles and miles. 

They’re on Route 2, nearing the Bay Bridge, when Sidney finally opens her mouth again. 

“Your mom told me you broke up.”

“Yep.” She wonders if she should apologize for that. 

“Another hope is to stop diseases from spreading beyond bats in the first place.”

Sidney is staring out the passenger side window. Jamie isn’t sure why, they’re on the highway and there’s nothing to see out there. “You’re doing okay, and all that?”

“Yep.”

“ _Previous studies have identified some hot spots where new diseases are most likely to spread from wild animals to people. _”__

“That’s good.”

“ _Bats very likely dropped fruit into pigpens, Brierly says. _”__

“This is like that movie, what’s that—“

“Contagion?” 

“Yeah, yeah, with the zombies.”

“ _Sometimes, prevention efforts are remarkably simple and cheap, he adds. _”__

“There are no zombies in that movie.” 

“They’re sort of like zombies, though?”

“ _What the results don’t mean, Brierly says, is that people should fear bats. _”__

“I would have a bat as a pet.”

“So you’re, like, doing okay also, Sid? With everything?”

“Would you have a bat as a pet?”

“ _‘We can’t expand into natural bat habitat,’ Brierly says, ‘and then blame the bats.’ _”__

“The man has a valid point.” 

“I would take care of your bat. But I don’t think I would want one of my own.” 

Sid finally angles her body back towards Jamie. “You would be my bat babysitter?”

“Yes. I mean, if you wanted.” 

Sid seems to consider this for a moment. “I would trust you with my bat.”

“You would?”

Sidney turns the radio off. “We’ll be hitting the bridge soon.”

“Got the music queued up?” 

For the first time since Jamie’s gotten home, she sees Sid’s face open into an actual human emotion. Just as quickly, Sidney’s impartial mask snaps back on. “You want to?”

“I mean, I just. It’s what we normally do? But if you don’t want to, that’s cool?” Jamie’s palms are sweating on the wheel. She wipes them off, one by one, on her pants. Jamie is always afraid that while on the bridge, she will be struck by the sudden impulse to drive off the edge. Not with Sidney in the car, she reminds herself. 

Sid nods slowly. “You count things that we did four years ago as ‘what we normally do’?” 

Jamie winces. “Yes?” Sid narrows her eyes. She silently gets the money for the toll out of her purse, and then messes with her phone for a minute. 

The cello begins leaking out of the stereo system, melancholy and sweet.

Jamie exhales. The bridge stretches out across the horizon. The clouds are smears of grey across the pale sky, and the water looks dark and wild. The bridge keeps arching up until they are so high that the boats below them look like toys. 

“Did you love him?”

The suspension wires move slightly in the wind.

Jamie wants to run her fingers through Sidney’s smooth black bob. She grips the wheel tighter. “I dunno.” Jamie can hear Sidney swallow. 

The music is falling, dipping down into a deep minor chord, and then coming back up into a too-human wail of grief. Jamie can hear the desperation of the bow strokes, the way they cut across the strings even as the vibrato becomes unbearably beautiful.

“That means you did. Do you still?”

“As a friend, maybe.” 

The notes move up and down, tug you in one direction only to drop you and watch you fall.

Sidney rolls her eyes. “Is that so very different, with you?” Jamie shrugs. 

The cello is echoing away into silence, the melody winding down and trailing off into an oppressive silence. 

The bridge slopes down onto the island, and Jamie lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Kent Island is shuttered up for winter. The few people she sees as they drive through the town hold themselves stiffly, as if their waterlogged limbs have frozen along with the change of seasons. 

***  
They’re only a few miles away from the sea, driving through yet another field of cover crops, when the snow suddenly starts pouring down as though a switch has been flipped. Jamie clenches her jaw. “Is this going to hold up?”

Sidney checks her phone. “Looks like…yes.” 

“I can’t drive back home in this.” 

“So what then?”

“Motel, I guess.”

They stop at a motel that looks like a 1970s color palette exploded. 

“Hi ma’am, do you have any rooms for tonight?”

The woman behind the counter looks up slowly, as though Jamie has interrupted her in the process of doing something critical. “Storming out there?”

“Yes ma’am, the roads are already getting bad.” 

The woman carefully pulls her glasses down from the top of her head. The glasses are attached to rhinestone bejeweled chain. “Just the two of you, then?” She surveys them.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Hey grandma—oh.” A young man emerges from the backroom, holding a bag of microwave popcorn, and then edges away.

The woman ignores him. “How many beds you’ll be wanting?” 

“Two,” Sid says, studying her nails. Jamie nods. 

“Two,” the woman echoes. “Where y’all coming from?” 

“Baltimore, ma’am.” 

“Baltimore. We don’t get many from out there, this time of year.” Jamie shrugs. “Out here for any particular reason?”

Sidney smiles. “Just for fun. Some nice girl bonding and all. Paint our nails and what not. We don’t get to see each other enough during the year.”

Something in the woman’s face relaxes. “Well, I suppose I can find a room for y’all. Come with me.” She leads them up a cramped staircase that seems like it might violate a few fire codes, and deposits them in a small, cold room. “You girls let me know if you need anything.” 

Jamie turns to Sid. “You want to drive to the beach, pick up a few groceries, and then come back here this evening?” This close to the ocean, Jamie can feel a visceral tugging in her chest, pulling her to the water. She aches for it, wants to be tumbled by the waves until she can no longer tell which way is up or what differentiates her own body from the rest of the universe. 

Sidney picks at a loose thread on her shirt. “Yeah, of course.” 

They drive to the beach. In the empty parking lot, Jamie picks up a handful of snow with a gloved hand and then stares up at the sky for a moment. The snow falls so softly through the air, but when it lands on her face it stings like a paper cut. 

She turns to Sidney, suddenly ecstatic, and then, without speaking, they both begin to run for the dunes. It’s around a half mile to the shore, and they slip over the snow-covered sand. Sidney almost falls, and Jamie grabs her hand and pulls her along. 

She feels as though she is moving through a dream, and when she wakes up she will find herself back in Dallas, alone in bed. 

They come over the crest of the hill, and Jamie sees the ocean rising and falling. She can hear it too now, the roar of blood in her ears. There are a few people standing on the beach, local fishermen mostly. The dogs circle slowly, watching their people. 

She grips Sid’s hand harder, her eyes gleaming. They walk to the water, and Jamie squats down, touches the froth and gets splashed by a wave. It’s frigid. She laughs. She stands back up, and wraps an arm around Sidney’s waist, pulls her into her side. Sidney tenses for a moment, and then relaxes, resting her head on Jamie’s shoulder. 

“You’re all wet,” Sid complains. 

“You’re cold,” Jamie squeezes her closer. “I missed this.”

Sidney seems to collapse inwards, like a puppet whose strings have all been cut at once. “You left.” 

Jamie pauses, confused. “You wanted me to. You told me to go.” The last words hurt to say—like coughing up rocks, gravel scraping up her trachea.

“You weren’t supposed to actually _go _,” Sidney says, her nails digging into Jamie’s hip.__

Jamie wants to fling herself into the water, the cold be damned. She’s sure that if she just stays in long enough, she’ll stop feeling the ache eventually, and her blood will turn to ice.

Once, as a small child, Jamie had fallen into the water during the winter. She had only been in for a few minutes, but that had been long enough for the hypothermia to wrap its claws around her. After the shock of hitting the water, it had stopped hurting until they had dragged her body out. 

One thing that they never told you about hypothermia is that after a while it starts to feel warm and comfortable. As Jordie and her mother had stripped off her clothes and wrapped her in blanket after blanket, their panicked faces had seemed completely unnecessary. She wanted to touch their faces and tell them not to worry, that she was happy, but her limbs weren’t moving very well. When the feeling had begun to come back into her body—starting with a soft tingling and then moving into a full-on stabbing—Jamie had cried for the loss of that warmth. 

Jamie realizes that she has been silent for too long. She clears her throat. “I didn’t know that.”

Sidney pulls away. “Yeah, well.” 

“Afterwards…Afterwards, I thought you didn’t want me so much, not anymore.” Jamie can scarcely believe she’s being this brave.

Sidney scratches at the sand with the toe of her boot. The waves keep rushing up towards them, leaving the sand wet and melting the falling snow. Sidney’s face is flushed and damp. The arcs that she draws with her foot are erased by the pounding water. “…don’t want to talk about this right now,” Sid says, her shoulders hunched in against the wind. 

Jamie feels as though she is drowning again. Her lungs feel filled with water, and her vision is slowly fading away as she stares out at the endless dark sky and ocean. Perhaps people are not made to contemplate such infinities. 

Jordie’s voice reverberates through her head: “I just want you to be okay.” 

Jamie doesn’t feel very okay, not right now. Maybe Sidney doesn’t either. 

“Alright, Sid. Alright.” She offers Sid her hand again, cautiously. “Let’s go get some food.” 

Sidney takes her hand, and they leave the beach. 

***  
The grocery store is, predictably, having a run on bottled water and canned goods. The place is abuzz with excitement and rumors. 

“Nothing like a good storm to get people excited,” Jamie says, grinning at Sid. She smiles back. 

They fill up a shopping basket with peanut butter and jelly and bread and water jugs. The aisles are jam-packed with customers, and everyone is laughing and predicting the end of times. It feels like a holiday.

“Going to be a big one,” says a grizzled old man.

“I can feel it in my bones,” Sid mockingly whispers to Jamie.

“A foot at least,” says a woman, nodding wisely. 

“Two, most likely.”

“We’ll all be stuck for days,” someone gleefully exclaims. 

The radio is shouting about the unexpected quantity of snow, and the harried cashier is trying to check out an increasingly long line.

“I kind of find it reassuring that we can’t predict the weather very well,” Jamie says, as they wait.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. It feels like if we could predict anything well, it should be the weather, but we can’t even do that.”

“And you find that comforting?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. Like, the idea that we don’t really have any clue what’s going to happen, or what big forces are shaping all of this. Or if there even are big forces shaping all of this. I don’t know. I just like not knowing, I guess.” 

Sidney leans into Jamie’s side, her eyes soft. “Most people would find that frightening, you know.” Jamie nods. 

“I guess it’s sort of unbearable, in a way, not knowing.”

“But you like it.” 

Sidney has such long, thin hands. They are rough, callused on the palms and reddened from hot water and abrasive soap, but they still have the elegance and extension of a pianist. “It’s sort of uniting, I guess? No one knows, we all have that in common.” 

“You’ve always been such a philosopher.” 

Jamie blushes. She’s pretty sure that no one at work would say that about her. “Shut up.”

“It’s true, though.” Sidney taps her fingers against her mouth, absent-mindedly. “I think I get what you’re saying. If no one knows, no one can definitively say for certain what is true and what is not, what will happen and what won’t. Or even what has happened.” 

Of course Sidney understands. “Yeah. I like that uncertainty. That we understand no more than the ancient peoples, with their legends and stories. Stories are all we have, too.” 

***  
“I can offer you…a peanut butter sandwich. Or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Or, if you insist, a jelly sandwich.”

“So many options!”

Jamie bows. “Only for you, my lady.” Sidney actually blushes, which is…interesting.

“Uh. Peanut butter and jelly, I guess?” 

Jamie hands her the ingredients. “Here, make it yourself.”

“Stellar service.” 

“You know me. Well, I guess I’m going to go fill up the bathtub.” 

“Why do people do that?” 

“Oh, it’s for washing and flushing the toilet.” 

“Huh.” 

“Yep.” Jamie walks into the bathroom and turns on the tap. The bathroom is painted the most unattractive orange-pink color known to mankind. 

They sit on the ground, in the small space in front of the beds, and eat sandwiches. Jamie feels an odd sense of peace flood across her. “What time is it?” 

“Can we just call it bedtime?” 

Sidney grins. “Let’s.” 

Jamie carefully doesn’t watch Sidney undress and crawl into bed. As Jamie takes off her shirt, Sidney pats the covers beside her. “My feet are cold.” 

“Oh?” Jamie asks, her heart beating too fast. 

Sidney smiles, all her teeth bearing. “Come warm them up.” 

Jamie should maybe run. Should run out that door, should run all the way back to Dallas, should never come back. She takes a step forward. Sid’s mouth stretches impossibly wider. Her face twists in Jamie’s mind. She shakes her head to clear it. “Sid,” Jamie says heavily. 

“Jamie,” Sid says, and tosses her head back to laugh. Jamie looks at the slivered moon of her face. Looks at her almond eyes. At the bow of her lips. Hesitates. “C’mon, Jamie,” Sid says, still giggling. “It’s no big deal.”

“I can’t do this,” Jamie says, backing up. “I can’t do this.” 

“Jamie,” Sid says, suddenly alarmed. 

Sidney is talking, the words coming out in a blur. Jamie can see the edges floating through the air, Sidney’s increasingly frantic hand motions, the rise and fall of her voice, but none of it makes any sense. She sits back down on the floor. Her head feels like it’s full of broken glass.

Breathe, she tells herself. One word at a time. “I need…”

Sidney is hovering over her at once. “What do you need, honey?” she asks tenderly. The affection makes Jamie’s stomach turn.

The words come out in a burst. “I need—some air. I’m going out for a walk.” 

Sidney looks desperate. “Don’t do this.”

“Do what?” Jamie asks, sharply. 

“Just—run off like that. At least let me come with you.” 

“You’re not wearing anything.” 

Sid smiles, weakly. “I can put something back on.”

They get dressed again; bundle back up into the heavy coats. Outside, the snow has slowed to the lightest sprinkle. They go to the back of the motel, which is a desolate, haunted marsh where people seem to have the tendency to dump their trash. 

“Look,” Sidney says, pointing. “There’s Orion’s Belt.” The three stars are sewn into the night, all their light contained in a few tiny pinpricks. She traces the Big Dipper with her hand. “The Big Dipper is down low and pouring out, because it’s winter. If you follow directly away from the handle, you hit the North Star in the Little Dipper.” Her voice trails off. “The trees block some of the sky. And there’s light pollution, so. You probably have a better view in Texas.” 

“Do you know any more?” Jamie asks. Her voice sounds rusty.

Sidney blinks. “Oh. Well, you see that bright W over there? That’s Cassiopeia.”

“Tell me about her.”

“Well, she had this daughter, you see? Andromeda. And Cassiopeia bragged that she was the most beautiful girl in all the world, even more so than the sea nymphs.”

“Beauty competitions. Always a bad idea.”

“No kidding. Anyway, so, Poseidon decides that to punish Cassiopeia for her pride he would flood her whole kingdom, and then an oracle tells Cassiopeia that the only way to save her people is to sacrifice Andromeda. So Cassiopeia chains Andromeda to a rock on the edge of the ocean and leaves her to die.”

“Yikes.” 

“Yep. Perseus rescues her, but that’s not important. Anyway, after Cassiopeia dies, Poseidon decides that she hasn’t been tortured enough for her pride, and thus hangs her upside down in the sky. Or maybe she’s being punished for leaving Andromeda to die, I’m actually not sure.” Jamie and Sid stare up at the sky for another moment or two. “Okay, now I’m actually cold.”

***  
They carefully stomp their boots off as they enter the room, and then Sidney turns to Jamie. “Can I?” she asks, her eyes careful.

“What?” Sidney unzips Jamie’s coat slowly, glancing up at her for affirmation. “Sidney—no. I can’t, don’t you understand?”

Sidney steps away several feet, hands held up. “I’m not going to—I’m not going to, like, _ravish _you, okay? You pretty clearly demonstrated that you don’t want to sleep with me. I can take a no.” She won’t make eye contact with Jamie.__

“So, what then? What do you want from me?”

“It’s stupid.” 

Jamie is getting overly hot in her coat now. “Just say it, I don’t care.”

“I just want to—I just want to take care of you, okay?” Sid’s face is staining pink. 

“Fine!” Jamie throws her arms up in the air. Her face is pink too. “Whatever!” 

“Fine!” Sidney stomps back over to Jamie. She’s scowling, but ever so gently unwinds Jamie’s scarf from around her neck, and places it on top of the wardrobe. 

“You’re so dumb.” Jamie feels something tingle down her spine. Sidney takes Jamie’s coat off, moving as though she’s afraid she might hurt Jamie. 

“Hands,” Sidney says stiffly. Jamie offers Sid her hands. Sidney removes Jamie’s big thick gloves softly, one finger at a time. Sidney is still wearing her own leather gloves, so Jamie doesn’t feel any brush of her skin, and yet it still feels as though she is being softly touched all over. Her nerves endings feel as though they are melting away. “Sit down on the bed.”

“Sid—“

“Sit.” Jamie sits. Sidney removes her snow-encrusted boots, and then her woolen socks. “Are you planning on sleeping in that sweater?”

Jamie looks down at herself. “No.” Sid hesitates. “You can.” She gestures down at herself, big lumpy sweater and all. “You can keep going. If you want.”

Sid blinks. Her eyelashes are not long or curved, the way the advertisements claim they should be, but they are thick and black and Jamie could write a thousand poems describing them. “Okay,” she says, her face utterly serious. 

She stands by the bed and carefully pulls Jamie’s sweater off her. At some point Sid lost her own coat and gloves, and Jamie feels Sid’s hands tracing up along her ribs, on top of her undershirt. 

“Let me tuck you in,” Sidney says. Jamie feels like she should laugh, but instead she has to contain another shiver. She allows Sid to arrange the covers around her, to fluff her pillow and position her in the bed. 

Sidney presses a kiss to the corner of her forehead. “Goodnight, Jamie.” She turns off the light on the nightstand, and Jamie hears her crawling into her own bed. 

***  
_Sid. Sidney. Sidney Crosby, a thousand breaking waves, the light of a hundred stars. The smell of lilacs in May, the purpled insolence of life. Sidney, Sidney, the hidden curls of fern fronds, the rain on red earth, the wings of swallows on my cheek. The cavernous mouth of the ocean, sea salt on my tongue, the Door to Hell. Sidney! O, who would not give themselves to you, what would I not give. The ache of the Appalachians, the fire of the surrendering sun, the pale flowers that grow between the trees. The marrow of my bones, the bees in my mind, the brown of my eyes. Sidney._

“Do you want to get breakfast?”

“Yeah, sure.” 

***  
The diner is small and brightly lit, heat booming out of the kitchen along with the cook’s hearty curses. Jamie stares out the window. There are several inches of slushy, dirty snow still clinging to the roads, despite the best attempts of the plows and the wintry sun gleaming in the clear sky. Sidney is shaking the snow off her scarf and gloves.

“Hey,” says Sidney. “Your sister is texting me.”

“What?” This can mean nothing good.

“She says to tell you to check your phone.”

Jamie pulls her phone out of her coat pocket. She hasn’t looked at it since before they left. 

_Honey, are you and Sidney okay? I know the weather is getting pretty bad out there, so stay safe. <333 love you. ___

_Hey Jamie I told mom that you’re probably just shacking up with Sid somewhere, but reply so we know you aren’t dead in a ditch ___

_Hon are you okay ___

_Where are you guys ___

_ANSWER YOUR PHONE ASSHOLE ___

_JAMIE YOU ARE SUCH A DICK ___

_YOU GUYS BETTER BE HAVING A LOT OF SEX IF YOU’RE IGNORING ME LIKE THIS ___

_ACTUALLY IF YOU’RE MAKING ME WORRY ABOUT YOU BECAUSE YOU’RE TOO BUSY HAVING SEX TO REPLY, I’M GOING TO KILL YOU WHEN YOU GET HOME ___

_I WILL DEFINITELY 100% KILL YOU IF YOU AREN’T BACK IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS, JUST SO YOU KNOW ___

_heyyyy jamiee, how ya doing? kayla told me u went 2 bmore 4 xmas, hope ur having a good time with the fam. ___

Jamie sighs. “You and Jordie text about me?” 

Sid looks away. “I mean, not like a lot? Just, you know, sometimes.” 

Jamie turns back to her phone.

_Sorry mom, I forgot to look at my phone. Sid and I are fine; we found a motel for last night and are having breakfast right now. The roads still aren’t looking great, so I’ll get back to you on whether we’ll leave later today or stay another night._

_HI JORDAN. ARE YOU STUCK ON CAPS LOCK AGAIN? ___

Sidney is tearing a paper napkin into confetti. “Like, you know, when you first left, I guess we texted more. But not, like that much recently, or whatever.” 

_TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS, WE ARE NEITHER DEAD NOR HAVING SEX. STOP BEING NOSY. ___

_ALSO STOP TEXTING SID. ___

_THAT’S WEIRD. ___

_(Sorry for making you worry.) ___

The waitress comes by. “How we doing this mornin’, girls?” 

Sidney grins at her. “Pretty well, thanks. And yourself?”

“Can’t complain, can’t complain. And what can I get for y’all today?”

“Eggs over easy and toast.”

“Anything to drink?”

“Some coffee would be great.” 

“And you, honey?”

“Uh. Coffee.” Jamie picks something at random off the menu. “And. Eggs Benedict?” 

“Sure thing. I’ll be right over with that coffee, girls.” 

“Thanks!”

“Sure thing, sweetheart.” 

The waitress walks away. 

“Got a lot of texts?”

Jamie rubs at her forehead with the heel of her hand. “I guess. Just my mom and Jordie and Tyler.” 

The waitress comes back with an enormous pitcher of coffee and pours some into their mugs. “Cream and sugar, hon?”

“Please.” She plops the sugar basket and chipped milk pitcher on the table. 

Sidney traces the rim of her cup, where a little bit of the coffee overflowed and dripped down the side. “You and him still text a lot, then?”

“Nah. This is the first time he’s texted me since, actually.” Sidney is pouring cream unbearably slowly into her coffee, staring down as though hypnotized at the tiny stream of white. “I haven’t replied, yet.”

“You going to?”

“Guess so.” Sidney sticks her spoon into her coffee, whirls it around for bit.

“Well, you go on then. Don’t let me stop you.”

Jamie smiles at her. “I know, you just want to commune with your coffee for a bit, right?”

“Yep. Me and the coffee want to be alone.”

_Hey Tyler. I’m doing well, thanks. Seeing the family is really great, it’s been a long time. I’m on a road trip with an old friend right now; we’re snowed in. ___

Tyler replies back immediately. _Snowed in, eh? ___

_Yeah. It’s been…interesting. ___

_“interesting” is that jamie-speak 4 sexy times ???? ___

_You are such an idiot. ___

_is he hot ___

_We are not having this conversation. ___

_so he’s hot then. ___

_How’s Brownie doing? ___

There’s a pause. _low blow, babe._

_Fuck you. ___

_u knw u want 2, doll face. _Jamie can imagine Tyler waggling his eyebrows in accompaniment of that comment.__

_look im not saying go 4 it, but if he’s into u (obvs) and ur into him, then go 4 it cuz we don’t all get that lucky_

_This friend and I, we used to date. ___

_It didn’t end very well. ___

_when u say “didn’t end very well” do u mean that he like stabbed u or like it was weird and uncomfortable 4 a while ___

_I moved to Texas._

_rough, babe. ___

_do u still love him? ___

_There’s too much between us now, it would never work. ___

_still though cielita, i kno that im ur weird gay ex-bf who probs shouldn’t be givin u relationship advice, but if u still love him after all these years, then maybe u should ask him to eat you out and c what happens ___

_You are such an idiot. ___

Jamie clutches her phone for a moment. She guesses it doesn’t matter, so she sends the text. _It’s not a him, by the way. ___

_baby doll ur leaving the hetero 2? im so proud we’re both so gay that’s so fucked up jajaja ___

_The word you’re looking for is “bi.” I’m bi. You, on the other hand, are clearly not bi. ___

_yo look at u w/ all the correct terminology, we’re both fags just suck it up jajaja ___

_Ask Brownie out, dickhead. And fuck you, not in the good way._

_at least u kno ur girl likes u back ___

_i could lose my job and my fam and my friends ___

_fuck u u have no idea wht it’s like ___

_You think I don’t know what it’s like? ___

_You’re such a dick. ___

_im sorry Jam. ___

_im just sorta dumb sometimes, sorry ___

_I know you are. ___

_I’m sorry too. ___

“Jamie? The food is here.” The pile of destroyed napkin has grown. 

“Oh. Sorry.” 

***  
“Jamie?”

“Yeah?”

“What happened to us?”

“God, Sid, don’t ask me that.” They’re walking back to the motel, plodding through the dirty snow piled up on the sidewalk. It’s easier to step in the footprints that have already been made, so they take large, staggering steps from one foot hole to another. The town is in a festive mood: children laughing and sledding in the streets; colored lights strung up and glittering around the houses.

“Why not?”

“You know why not.” 

Sidney whirls around to face her, scowling. “No, I really fucking don’t! I’ve spend four _years _trying to figure it out, and I still don’t fucking know what happened.”__

The snow is dripping into Jamie’s boots, unpleasantly sloshing around and soaking her wool socks. “What the fuck do you want me to say, then? If in four years of thinking about it you couldn’t figure it out?” 

“Just tell me what happened. That’s all I want to know.” The next step is a big one, more of a jump than anything.

“I don’t know either, okay?”

“That’s a lie.”

“Sid! It’s not a lie!”

“You know, but you just won’t tell me, for some messed up reason that only makes sense in your head, probably. I know how your mind works, the crap it comes up with sometimes.” They’re walking in single file now, and Jamie watches to see how Sidney gets over a big snowdrift. 

“Sid. Look, I’m sorry. I know you wish there was some big dramatic explanation or something, something we could talk over and fix and then be okay again, but there’s not. We just weren’t good together, I guess.”

“Bullshit.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe we were too young. We were both depressed, at the end there especially. We had no money. We loved each other too much and we were both too jealous and we had no experience and we were too far in the closet and too filled with self-hatred and shame and whatever else it was—there are a thousand reasons it didn’t work. We had some big fights about nothing at all. I got scared and you got angry and everything went to shit. Why bother talking about it now? It’s done, okay?” 

Sidney is staring at the ground, and Jamie can’t see her face. “You throw these things in my face— _money _, fuck, whatever the other shit you said was—like they matter. You know none of that fucking mattered.”__

“Of course they mattered.” 

“I _loved _you.”__

“As if I didn’t love you.” 

“You left.” 

“What was I supposed to do? You told me to leave. I told you I was looking for a new job.”

“Jobs. She talks to me about jobs.”

“People need jobs, Sidney. This world isn’t one of those novels you love so much—we aren’t living in some kind of fantasy of yours.”

“So you moved to _Texas _,” Sidney spits, “and became a _military _contractor. And dated a _hockey player _. You left me to go completely sell yourself out, isn’t that right?”______

Jamie has never wished she could disassociate on command as hard as she is wishing right now. “I study signaling proteins, okay?” she says instead. 

“You are completely missing the point.” 

“See, this right here is why we didn’t work out.” 

Sidney glances around, her eyes wild and her face red. “Why? Because I think you could be doing more with your life? Because I think you’re being selfish, hiding yourself away in Texas and not talking to anyone?”

“Can we not talk about this here? In public? In front of all these people?” 

Sidney stops walking. “You always did care more about what strangers thought of you than what the people who love you did.” 

“Sid. Calm down. You’re going to regret saying all of this in like twenty minutes.”

Sid stamps her foot, like a literal child having a tantrum. “I’ve been waiting to say all of this for four years, I won’t regret it.” 

“Okay.” Jamie reaches out a hand, like she’s trying to pet a cat that might either claw her or start purring. Sidney doesn’t jerk away immediately, so Jamie pats her arm gently. “We’ll go back to the room, and I’ll put another pair of socks because these ones are soaked, and then we’ll drive to the beach, see how the roads are doing. Once we’re there, we’ll walk around a little bit, talk about this some more, check out the ocean. See if anyone’s out there fishing. Okay?” 

Sidney hesitates. “Yeah, okay.” 

***  
Sometimes Jamie feels like she just goes to the same places over and over again. Sees the same people, has the same conversations, maybe even has the same thoughts. There has to be more out there, she’s sure of it. Surely not everyone lives this way.

She’ll admit, however, that if she is fated to always repeat the same scenes over and over again, she could have chosen a lot worse than this beach with Sidney. 

***  
Sidney is quiet in the car ride to the beach, and then explodes again as they walk slowly down the dunes. Jamie thought she had remembered how much passion and emotion Sid was capable of, but clearly the memory has been dulled by the last four years without her presence.

“All I’m saying is that it’s bullshit.” 

“Why’s it bullshit?” Jamie looks up at a flock of cawing seagulls. The day has become bone-white and sapped of color in the way that only a winter day can be. 

Sidney is silent for long enough that Jamie almost begins to think that she’s in the clear. “I’ll tell you why. Do you remember when we ran away here one October weekend and somehow managed to pick the days the dolphins were mating in the water just off the beach?”

“I do.” 

“They were all over each other, you remember? They were having so much fun: the water was all churned up, the way they were jumping around and splashing and becoming tangled up in each other. All those mouths and bodies and skin and water. It looked like they were one organism, like they just had one mind and it was singing, one big vibrating nerve singing. Like the whole ocean was theirs. Do you remember that, Jamie?”

They’re approaching the water’s edge again. There are some plovers scurrying around, their long stick legs and beaks moving faster than a hummingbird’s wings. “Of course I remember, Sid.” 

“And you remember the way you brought that big old blanket out of the trunk of that beat up car you had and that book of poetry—who was it again?”

“Whitman.”

“Of course it was Whitman. You always have to hit the nail on the head as literally as possible, don’t you? Don’t answer that. And you brought those roast beef sandwiches, and that flask of black tea spiked with whiskey, to keep us warm, you said. You remember?”

“God, Sidney, why are you doing this?” 

Sidney plows brutally onwards. “We walked along the shore for what felt like both forever and no time at all, following the dolphins, and then what did we do next, Jamie?”

“What is this, an autopsy of our relationship?”

“What did we do next?”

“Stop!” 

Sidney stops. She walks a few feet away from Jamie, turns away from her. “Sorry. I just. Sorry. I didn’t mean it. You know I didn’t mean it. You know how I get sometimes. I’m sorry.” She crouches down, facing the water, puts her head in her hands. Looks for all the world like a little bird. 

Jamie wishes she still had that old blanket to put around Sidney’s shoulders. 

“We sat down, and ate the sandwiches, and I wrapped us up in that blanket, and then I read you poetry—for hours and hours, until my voice was shot and you fell asleep on my shoulder. And then I carried you back to the car when it started to rain.” The curled up ball of Sidney seems to shake an infinitesimal bit. “Let me see…  
As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer,  
At once I find, the least thing that belongs to me, or that I see or touch, I know not;  
I too, but signify, at the utmost, a little washed-up drift,  
A few sands and dead leaves to gather,  
Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.  
That’s about all I’ve got. Do you remember any more of it?”

Jamie waits, and after a time, Sidney says, her voice cracking: “You oceans both! You tangible land! Nature! Be not too rough with me—I submit—I close with you, these little shreds shall, indeed, stand for all.” 

“I don’t know how you ever thought I’d forget, Sid.” 

“You always were a ridiculous romantic.” 

“Sorry I don’t have any sandwiches this time.” 

“Hell, what am I doing here then? You know I only came for the food.” Sidney stands up, wipes at her face with her coat sleeve.

“Slumming it, clearly. I’m surprised you haven’t married some rich lady by now, someone with a servant solely dedicated to making you roast beef sandwiches.” 

“Thought you’d come back and I’d be married off, did you?”

“Yes,” Jamie says, perhaps a little bit too seriously. 

“Jamie!”

“What?”

“You didn’t really, did you?”

Jamie considers claiming that she doesn’t know what Sid’s talking about, but ultimately dismisses this as useless. Trying to keep things from Sidney is an exercise in futility. “I mean, I guess?”

“So you thought you’d just exile yourself to Texas, and only come back when I was safely married and couldn’t get at you. Have I got it right?” 

“Sid—”

“I’m not sure whether to be more horrified that you think yourself that easily replaceable, or more amused that you thought I would just fall in love with some random princess while you were gone.”

Jamie can’t help smiling. “I missed—this. You, all riled-up and with your claws out, yelling at everything and everyone.” 

Sidney stares at her. “That’s…that’s strangely touching, really. You don’t mind that I’m all…that I’m like this, sometimes?” 

“Nah. I like all the Sidneys.”

“All of them?”

“Yep.” 

“Even the one who always leaves dirty dishes in the sink? And the one who’s cold and distant and cutting? And the one who’s so depressed she can’t get out of bed? Who can’t hold down a job, or pay her rent on time?” 

“All of them,” Jamie says firmly. 

“What about when I’m jealous?”

“Even then.”

“Did you love him better than you loved me?”

“Of course not. God, how could you even think that?” 

Sidney smiles shakily. “This is better than a butler who makes sandwiches.”

“Oh really?” 

“Definitely.” 

“Race you back to the car? Hey! You little—” Sidney is off running before Jamie finishes her sentence. 

***

**Author's Note:**

> I'm working on another chapter of this. No promises as to when it will come out, but hopefully soon. Also, if any of you are interested in beta-ing, that would be one way to make me write faster. 
> 
> [tw with spoilers: Tyler has a lot of internalized homophobia, and he dates Jamie (a woman) despite being gay. Their breakup scene has a lot of self-hatred. Jamie returns home, where she reconnects with her old friend and ex-girlfriend, Sidney. Their break-up is discussed, and it is mentioned that both Jamie and Sid were depressed and dealing with internalized homophobia when they broke up. Jamie has a tendency to dissociate and has some speech issues. Jamie has a flashback to a childhood near-drowning incident. Jamie also has some throwaway remarks that hint that she’s considering or has considered suicide. A woman acts suspiciously towards Jamie and Sid in a motel—Jamie feels like she is being hostile because she suspects that Jamie and Sid are together, but this is never confirmed.]
> 
> [The bachata song is Juan Luis Guerra’s “Muchachita Linda.”  
> The news excerpt is from a January 8, 2016 NPR segment entitled “Worrisome Bat-Disease Map Shouldn’t Make People Fear Bats.”  
> The excerpted Whitman poetry is from the first poem of Leaves of Grass.]


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